


offer my hand and i'll take your name

by hedgebitch



Category: Nightwing (Comics)
Genre: F/M, Fake Marriage, Fix-It, Hurt/Comfort, Marriage, Nightwing Annual (Volume 2) #1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:15:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27222595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hedgebitch/pseuds/hedgebitch
Summary: Objectively, Dick knows that maintaining a healthy marriage isn't easy. But he kind of figured a fake marriage wouldn't be quite this complicated. And yet here he is, getting real-dumped by his fake wife on their semi-real honeymoon. What's a lovelorn vigilante to do?
Relationships: Barbara Gordon & Dick Grayson, Dick Grayson/Emily Washburn
Comments: 7
Kudos: 16





	offer my hand and i'll take your name

**Author's Note:**

> this is very gently beta'd so. be nice to me. title from hourglass by catfish and the bottlemen. the line dick remembers from the dock is taken verbatim from the comic.

He lets her leave at the dock. There are police officers to speak with, names to drop, evidence to push them towards—so much to take care of that it’s not til he’s back in his—single—hotel room that Dick even lets himself properly anguish. 

The first thing he does, as it often tends to be, is call Babs. 

“Hi Babs,” he says when she picks up the phone. “I fucked up.”

“No shit,” Babs says, and he hears a mumble come through from her line. 

“Just girl trouble, baby,” Babs dismisses the mumbler. “Go back to sleep.”

“Okay, zooming through the exposition where I told you in no uncertain terms that it was a terrible idea to pretend to marry a suspect and you did it anyways—where are we at? What kind of fucked up are we feeling?”

Dick goes through all of it with her—the case, Annelise’s attempt to drown him and kill Em, the… was it a fight? on the dock—because he doesn’t know that he’ll be able to go through a case summary later, not if he’s feeling this same kind of awful when he lands back in Gotham. 

“Mmhmm,” Babs says when he finishes, finishes telling her about looking Emily in the eyes as she asked him “Can you honestly tell me you don’t have any more secrets?”

“I’ve got a clarifying question,” Babs continues before delivering any verdict. 

“Shoot,” Dick tells her, knowing he’ll regret it in .2 seconds.

“Did it, at any point before you straight up handed her your wedding band, ever cross your tiny little pea brain to tell her you love her once she knew you were no longer lying?”

Dick starts to protest that he never had the chance, but Babs hangs up when the first word out of his mouth isn’t yes or no. 

He stares at the phone in his hands for a second or two before setting it back down in its cradle. The second he does, the line rings again.

“Tell her,” Babs says, and then has the phone wrestled from her hand.

“And then leave her alone,” Dinah adds, and hangs up again, leaving Dick wondering if “her” is Babs or Emily. 

He paces the length of his hotel room for ten minutes, then calls down to the front desk to double check that Emily hasn’t switched hotels. When the evening concierge buys his half-assed excuse and assures him both rooms on his reservation are still occupied, he dials up the automated attendant to leave a private voicemail. 

“Hi, Em. It’s me. Please don’t delete this without listening,” he starts, and immediately regrets it. 

He thinks on it for a second and opts to power through.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I know it doesn’t fix anything. I lied to you and humiliated you, I lied to your son, and I don’t deserve your forgiveness, but I couldn’t—it’s been eating at me, what you said, that I’m not in love with you, because it’d be so much easier for you if I left you believing that, but I—I couldn’t stand to leave you with another lie, and the truth is, from the very first time I told you I loved you, I meant it. I love you. I love Dennis. I think I’m going to love you for a pathetically long time, even if you never let me see your face again. I’m—”

He pauses again, debating how to end a call with the woman who’s already rejected him once today.

“I’m not going to do you the indignity of begging you to call me when you’re back in Gotham, so, I guess that’s all. I’m sorry. I love you.”

Dick considers deleting it and starting over, or not leaving her a message at all, but if he does the former, he’ll inevitably end up doing the latter, and then Babs will kill him in cold blood, so he sends the voicemail to Emily’s room, and lies back on his bed in wait of either sleep or morning—whichever comes first.

Morning comes first, a fact Alfred notes with a raised eyebrow as Dick climbs into the car outside the airport in Gotham.

“How was Hawaii?” he inquires, and the roughness of Dick’s voice is a surprise to his own ears when he responds that it was “lovely.”

Dick’s got shit at Emily’s townhouse and shit at the manor and shit at his own neglected apartment back in Blüdhaven, but the more he tries to think about where to start and where to end up, all he can think is he just wants to be where Emily is, so he pages Babs and heads to the Clocktower.

Dinah is out on a case, which is—well, it’s easier than if she were there. It’s not that things are tense between them but. Well. He and Babs are definitely still a little on-eggshells with each other, stuck in that weird place where they know the way they love each other has changed, but they’re still quick to fall into old habits and patterns of thought. It’s not always comfortable coming back to reality with an audience.

Babs talks him through a mini breakdown or seven as she works, helps him come up with plans of action—for if Em calls, or for if she doesn’t.

Eventually, she does call, agrees to meet him in person to talk things out in a few days. As far as Dennis is concerned, she tells him, Dick is on a business trip.

Dick wonders aloud if that’s a positive or a negative—it’s easy to come back from a business trip. It’s just as easy to go on one much longer than expected. Dick would know, considering how many times he’s seen Bruce pull that one off. Babs doesn’t vote one way or the other, just looks him over with either pity or disdain, and gives Huntress the coordinates she’s asking for over coms.

(“At least she didn’t tell him you went out to the store for milk,” Dinah jokes as Dick heads out for a quick recon run, not wildly sympathetic to his plight.)

“Okay,” Emily says, staring down at her coffee—two shots of ristretto, almond milk creamer—at the restaurant she agreed to meet Dick at for lunch. “Where do we go from here?”

They’ve made it past the awkward pleasantries, have made it all the way through salads and small talk, and now Dick’s picking at his chicken cacciatore as Emily digs into the heart of this little lunch date. 

“I know it’s up to me to decide whether or not I forgive you,” she tells him. “But I have a vested interest in giving you a chance to persuade me.”

“A chance is all I’m asking for,” Dick tells her earnestly. She looks him over, appraising his honesty, his… everything, and gives a sharp nod.

“You said—on the phone you said you didn’t want to leave me with a lie,” she says, more of a question than a statement.

“I meant it,” Dick tells her.

“Good,” she says with a smile, that smile that’s got Dick thinking this really will work. “Because I’ve recently experienced a traumatic life event that’s reminded me I could die at any second. So let’s keep it to no lies at all, from here on out.”

“Alright,” Dick says, knowing Emily doesn’t understand the depth of the contract she’s asked him to sign, and signing on all the same. “No lies.”

Emily takes a deep breath, and gives him a chance to start again.

“Hi,” she says, a self-deprecating smile poking at the corner of her mouth. “I’m Emily Washburn. My last three husbands died under conspicuously awful circumstances, and I’m starting to suspect my son thinks stepdads expire like food. It’s nice to meet you.”

She reaches out a hand, half joking, and Dick shakes it.

“Enchante,” he tells her, debating where exactly to start. “I’m Dick Grayson. I’m a registered socialist. And I, uh… I live in Blüdhaven.”

Emily chokes on her coffee.

“You _what_? You—”

She splutters into laughter, too violent to get words out for a moment. Her water is empty, so Dick slides his across the table towards her, as he struggles and ultimately fails to avoid joining her laughter.

“Oh my god. This isn’t funny. This is not funny, you lied, you lied about a lot of things, and this isn’t—oh my god, were you _commuting_?”

Dick quickly shakes his head no and attempts to regain his composure as Emily does this same.

“No, I—I did move in with Bruce, I just, was also still paying rent on my apartment, showing up every now and then so my landlord wouldn’t freak.”

“And Bruce? Did he—did he know why you were doing this?”

It’s a sobering reminder of why exactly they’re sitting here, in neutral territory.

“He did. So did Tim—and Alfred, and Barbara. My friends who crashed the wedding, they didn’t know, still don’t, except for Donna.”

“And your family,” Emily frowns. “The people who knew, I mean. They were okay with it? With you pretending to marry a woman you thought was a serial killer?”

“Babs—who’s also my ex, I should let you know that—told me absolutely not to on multiple occasions. Bruce was okay with it, but that’s not really a positive indicator. Alfred advised against it, but he’s used to my bullshit and knew I’d do it anyways. Tim is a teenage boy and thought I should be sleeping with you more.”

“Smart kid,” Emily interjects, and Dick flushes because okay, yeah, that one’s called for.

The rest of their lunch passes pleasantly, or, as pleasantly as it can, considering. Emily asks, and Dick tells the truth, and it’s a weirdly freeing ritual, in a way that confirms Dick’s internal suspicions that he isn’t calling on friends anywhere near frequently enough. But… 

“There’s a question you’re not asking,” Dick notes.

“I figure that one can wait til after the waiter’s come back around with the bill,” Em says, and he can’t help but wonder if she’s already figured it out

When the waiter does bring them the bill, she takes her time, lets Dick walk her out the door and halfway into Grant Park before she finally addresses the elephant in the room. Or, well, park.

“You’re not a cop,” she says. “Or you’d have given the precinct in Waikiki a badge number, the name of a superior officer, I don’t know, something.”

“I’m not a cop,” Dick happily agrees. “And I’m sure you’ve figured out I don’t work for Waynecorp, either.”

“How many times did you think I’d fall for that time difference excuse?”

Dick winces. “Evidently at least once more than you did.”

She gives him a little reprimanding nudge with her hip—a surefire sign she knows what’s coming, and Dick wishes she could just say it for him, but he knows that’s not how this has to go.

“I’m Nightwing,” he finally tells her, plain and simple, and watches her face betray no surprise, no confusion. “And I didn’t tell you at first because I thought you were a murderer, and I didn’t tell you when I knew you weren’t because I’m a coward, and telling you meant letting you go.”

“Why does telling me mean I’m going to leave?”

“I’ve exposed you, exposed Dennis to danger, without your knowledge, without your consent. I’m responsible for anything that might happen to you just through your proximity to me.”

“Okay, and what if I’d gone to Hawaii with a man who doesn’t carry around an extra respirator? Dick, in the entire time I’ve known you, you’ve been responsible for nothing but keeping us safe. That was never in question.”

“So where does this leave us?” Dick swallows back the lump in his throat to ask.

“Well,” Emily considers. “I love you. And you lied to me… and you love me.”

“Right back where we started, then?”

“Right back where we started,” Emily agrees, slipping her hand into his and walking on.

They walk quietly together for a few minutes—Dick’s not going to break the silence, not when this is a decision that has to be Emily’s.

“I have my own confession to make,” she tells him as they reach the street at the edge of the park.

“Oh?”

“I haven’t told my mom about what happened in Hawaii yet. I mean, I told her about Annelise’s arrest, told her we were coming back early—but not… about you. So I go to her place in Bristol first thing, to pick up Den, and I find out he’s not even there. I told him I was going to call him every morning while we were gone—I missed that day because I was on the plane. But he remembered that you had told him he could always call you, whenever he needed to—and of course mom only had the number for the manor.”

“He didn’t run off, did he?” Dick asks, starting to tense with worry.

“No,” Emily tells him. “Alfred, who apparently both knew that you hadn’t legally married me and thought I was a murderer, let him come over to make cookies.”

“I’m still waiting on the end of that confession.”

“The moment Dennis told me what you’d said to him, that no matter what happened, you’d pick up the phone—I’d already forgiven you.”

Oh.

“Oh,” Dick says, because his brain is filled with a pleasant wordless buzzing.

“So here’s what’s going to happen,” Emily decides, sounding more and more decisive with each word that crosses her lips. “I’ve done all my thinking, so this part is up to you. Either you’re going to come by on a weekday, while Dennis is in school, and you’re going to pack up your shit and we’ll never see each other again.”

“...or?” Dick asks, because right off the bat this is not the most appealing option.

“...or,” Emily tells him. “You’re going to figure out what you need to tell the city clerk about our lost-in-the-mail marriage license, and you’re going to show up whenever you damn well please to take this ring back from me, and you’re going to sleep in a bed with me because you want to, and we’re going to fight about normal things like me going back to med school while you refuse to get a real job, instead of over anymore dumb lies.”

“I like that option much better,” Dick tells her, because he does.

“I was hoping you would,” Emily confesses, tilting her head up and leaning in to kiss him goodbye, soft and sweet and shorter than he’d like it to be.

“I love you,” he tells her again, because it’s true and he can barely believe it.

“Prove it,” she challenges.

**Author's Note:**

> *jeb voice* please clap. if you’d like to steer me towards niche content that appeals to you, manipulate me on tumblr @[barbarawilson](https://barbarawilson.tumblr.com/)


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